When Graham Brady knocks on the door of 10 Downing Streetit is very likely that your tenant will shake.
Brady chairs the 1922 Committee, the group that brings together conservative deputies without a government position, which makes him the one in charge of giving the incumbent prime minister the bad news that he no longer has the support of his parliamentary group.
That he did on May 24, 2019 with Theresa May, after the failure of his management to carry out Brexit. That he did last July 7 with Boris Johnson, when the internal rebellion in the “Tory” ranks was unbearable. And he did the same thing again today, October 20, when meeting with the resigning Liz Truss.
In all cases, Brady was the last person to cross the threshold of number 10 before its occupant came out to announce his resignation.. As if he were an ominous presence, this 55-year-old deputy is responsible for giving the “kiss of death” to the prime ministers sentenced by his fellow caucuses.
The 1922 Committee is considered in the UK to be a kind of “union” of Conservative MPs. Their meetings are on many occasions a hive of conspiracies in which they are forged the already legendary internal rebellions that end with the beheading of their leaders.
“The Conservative Party has become a sect of death“, affirmed this week the Sunday Times Sunday to describe the “Tory” propensity towards palace games to overthrow their leaders.
As ministerial posts in the United Kingdom are shared exclusively between MPs from Westminster, the 1922 Committee is full of old disgraced figures, eternal candidates waiting for an opportunity that never comes or representatives of the faction punished by the Executive of turn.
Keeper of a coveted secret
Brady, who is also the repository of one of the most coveted secrets in British politics, seems to be able to handle himself in these waters: only he can know the exact number of letters sent by “Tory” deputies requesting a motion of censure against their own leader. .
If 15% of the Conservatives in Parliament they send a letter saying that they have lost confidence in the person who commands the partythe committee can call an internal censure motion to remove him.
However, on recent occasions a vote was not even necessary. It was enough for Brady to show the exit door to May, Johnson and Truss for the classic lectern from which the prime ministers announce their farewell to begin to be assembled.
A member of the right wing of the formation, Brady has chaired the 1922 Committee since 2010with a brief three-month break in 2019 to explore a hypothetical Conservative leadership bid that never came to fruition.
An MP for one of the safest constituencies for the Tories, Altrincham and Sale West, he was first elected in 1997, at the height of the Labor wave, when he became the youngest MP in his party.
In 2016, Brady publicly declared himself in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union and during the pandemic He was against the confinements decreed by the Government of Boris Johnson.
But it has always been his facet at the head of the “men in gray suits”, as Margaret Thatcher contemptuously baptized the 1922 Committee, which has given him greater notoriety (and power).
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